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Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos
Released by Blizzard Entertainment in 2002, is a real-time strategy computer game and the second sequel to Warcraft. It is the third game set in the Warcraft Universe. Details the second coming of the Burning Legion and the origins of the Scourge, along with the fall of Lordaeron and the awakening of the Night Elves. In addition, the Orcs leave the Eastern Kingdoms and on their journey to Kalimdor, save the Darkspear Trolls from destruction. When they arrive, they also assist the Tauren and officially form the Horde as a collective of these races. Overview One of the main innovations Warcraft III offers over the previous games in the series is the addition of several powerful units called heroes. For instance, heroes within the game can find or trade items to increase skills, defense, etc. With each kill of an enemy of a certain level the heroes gain experience points, eventually resulting in increased levels of their own, and new spell options (thus introducing role-playing game elements to the series). Heroes also can apply beneficial auras to allied units. Another new innovation is the addition of creeps, which are computer controlled characters the player fights even in multiplayer. They guard key areas or neutral buildings and are designed to act as a resource for the players to kill to provide experience points to a player's hero and to provide hero items. The idea is to force the player to be aggressive instead of "turtling up" (refraining from adventuring outside of one's starting area). Within the game there are four races at war: the Humans and the Orcs, who also appeared in Warcraft I and Warcraft II, along with two new character teams, the Night Elves and the Undead. As an April Fool's joke before the game was released, Blizzard announced that the Pandaren would be the fourth race. The company didn't reveal the Night Elves until a month later, and pandas are a running gag in Warcraft now (to the point that a Pandaren Hero -- called the Brewmaster -- was available in the expansion pack, Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne). A fifth playable race, the Burning Legion, was changed during play-testing to a set of non-player characters and monsters (with a playable "cameo" on the last level of the Undead campaign, as Kel'Thuzad summons Archimonde). Players meet other players over the Internet to set up multiplayer games via Blizzard's free Battle.net service, or may play against the computer. Warcraft III also includes a very thorough scenario editor. It uses a scripting language similar to the trigger system used in StarCraft. As well as providing the ability to edit any aspect of the units, buildings and spells, it has such advanced features as custom tilesets, custom cinematic scenes, dialog boxes, variables, and weather effects. Many custom maps, featuring a large variety of gametypes continue to be developed, and together with the expansion pack have contributed to the longevity of the game. The game was developed by Blizzard Entertainment, a subsidiary of Vivendi Universal, and released in July 2002. Warcraft III proved to be one of the most anticipated and popular video game releases ever, with 4.5 million units pre-ordered and over 1 million additional units sold during its first two weeks. Story Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow. Similar to how Starcraft was told, the story in Warcraft III is told through all four races in a progressive manner. The order is Human, Undead, Orc, and Night Elf. Human Alliance: Prince Arthas, a paladin of the Silver Hand, and Jaina Proudmoore, Arthas' former lover and apprentice-Archmage, are investigating a strange plague that is spreading across the lands of Lordaeron. To their horror, they find that the plague turns unsuspecting people into hideous Undead warriors, and must move to stop the Undead's plans. Arthas, proceeds to hunt down the plague's originator: Mal'Ganis. Mal'Ganis travels northward to the icy lands of Northerend, and Arthas follows him. There he aids an old friend, Muradin Bronzebeard, who tells him of a power weapon, a sword called Frostmourne. Arthas obtains Frostmourne, at the cost of Muradin's life, and uses it to defeat Mal'Ganis. However, as a result, Frostmourne steals Arthas' soul and turns to ally the undead... Undead Scourge: With their new leader, the Undead must move to complete their purpose in Lordaeron, which is to destroy the remnants of the Alliance, and to pave the way for a new invasion. In a series of quests, Arthas succeeds in reviving a former adversary, Kel'Thuzad, as a Lich, and the two successfully open an inter-dimensional portal for the true masters of the Scourge, the Burning Legion, to enter the realm of Azeroth (see the article on Arthas for a more detailed description). Orcish Horde: After escaping Human captivity and fleeing to the shores of Kalimdor, Orcish warchief Thrall must lead his bretheren to safety and ensure their survival in this strange and hostile land. Help comes from the Tauren, a nomadic group of Kalimdor-natives, and their leader, Cairne Bloodhoof. Unfortunately, fellow Orc Grom Hellscream falls under demonic corruption, and Thrall is forced to go to great lengths to save him. He also discovers (courtesy of an oracle) that his fate is to help repel the Burning Legion, and he and human leader Jaina Proudmoore ally to accomplish this goal, and also to save Hellscream. Night Elf Sentinels: With the coming of the Undead and Burning Legion as well as the Humans and Orcs, Tyrande Whisperwind and her Night Elf Sentinels fight a desperate battle to save their beloved home of Kalimdor. She first reawakens her lover, Malfurion Stormrage, and then the Druids of the Claw and the Druids of the Talon. She also decides to free the great betrayer, Illidan Stormrage, and he is eventually instrumental in weakening the Legion. Finally, she and Furion join forces with Proudmoore and Thrall to delay the Legion's advance until a proper end can be arranged for their leader Archimonde (mirroring the final mission of StarCraft, in which the player commands a multi-racial force against a common foe). Play details The four warring races have different advantages, most of them similar to the racial attributes of the Terrans, Zerg, and Protoss from StarCraft, another popular RTS from Blizzard. The different stratically significant traits of the races in Starcraft have been combined in new ways to form the Warcraft III races. The Warcraft III Night Elves, for instance, resemble the Terrans in that their buildings can move and their base fighting unit has a missile attack, but like the Zerg, their worker units are consumed when they create most buildings. The Undead have the Protoss's ability to summon buildings rather than constructing them, so a worker unit is not tied up in construction; also like the Protoss, they have a dedicated invisible spy unit, but their buildings have to be constructed upon dedicated infested terrain called Blight (like the Zerg Creep), and their army line-up is strategically similar to that of the Zerg. However, unlike other RTS games, Warcraft III has introduced a new element of game play, special units called Heroes. Heroes are super units that have special abilities that expand as the game progresses (as they gain experience). For example, a Human Archmage hero can acquire the ability to (temporarily) summon water-elementals, increase the mana regeneration rate of surrounding magic casting units, create a blizzard over enemy units, and teleport friendly units to other parts of the map. In the course of a game a maximum of up to three heroes can be built, but if they die, they can be revived at an altar. Between Heroes and a low food cap it is difficult to win through sheer numbers, and Micromanagement becomes more important. The upkeep concept also keeps armies small as it penalizes anyone who gets too big too fast. As a result gameplay is more tactical than strategic. There are strong distinctions in the game between melee and ranged units; between air and ground units; and (particularly in The Frozen Throne) between mundane, magical, and antimagic units. Antimagic units, such as the Humans' Elven Spell-Breaker (only in the expansion pack) and the Night Elves' Dryad, have the ability to cancel the effects of magic spells cast on other units. Expansion set On May 29, 2003, Blizzard announced that the expansion set, Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne had "gone gold" (release version sent to presses). It was released in stores worldwide in multiple languages beginning on July 1, 2003. It includes an additional hero for each race and three to four new units per race, four campaigns, eight neutral heroes, the ability to build a shop and various other improvements such as the ability to queue upgrades. It requires the ownership of Reign of Chaos. Blizzard regularly patches both the original game and the more popular 'expanded' version to fix bugs, add new features, and balance multiplayer play. The latter is the reason Blizzard games remain popular long after their initial release. Spin-offs A massively multiplayer online role-playing game set in the WarCraft universe, entitled World of Warcraft, is the fourth WarCraft game in a series produced by Blizzard. It picks up the WarCraft storyline four years after the events of The Frozen Throne. Custom maps There are many player-made multiplayer maps (made with the World Editor tool, that comes with the game) available for download and play on Battle.net as well as many fansites. Among the popular maps are: * Angel Arena * Defense of the Ancients and spinoffs (primarily DotA Allstars) * Tides of Blood * Footmen Frenzy * Life of a Peasant and spinoffs (over 300 versions exist) * Europa, Europa Universalis, and Europa Revolutionized, of which multiple clans have formed, dedicated to playing these maps * Snipers, which has developed a clan following * Sheep Tag *: There are many different variations on the basic Sheep Tag formula, such as Panda Tag, Tauren Tag, Tree Tag, and Jailbreak (not to be confused with Prison Escape). * Line Tower Wars and other Tower Defense, such as XTD, Cube Defense, Green TD, Blue TD and Massacre TD * Skibi's Castle Defense, a very popular Tower Defense map *: The creator missing_tooltip was actually hired by Blizzard Entertainment. Skibi 6.0 was then released as a Blizzard Official Map. * Wintermaul, the first of the maul genre. * Footman Wars, the beginning of the footman series. * Uther Party, a game with a series of minigames, now more than 50 * Minigames * Rival Nations * Enfo's Team Survival Series *: Note: It is incorrect and common to say you are "playing Enfo." Enfo is the man that created the map, not the name of the game. * Lord Of The Rings-based games, such as those based on famous battles of the fictional War of the Ring. * Eve of the Apocalypse *: Close to DotA (and other AoS-styled maps), but has a much less item-centred, more teamwork oriented and more complicated gameplay. * Defense of the Ancients AllStars http://www.dota-allstars.com/forums/index.php *: a map originally created by Guinsoo, now maintained by IceFrog. Based on the original DotA by Eul. * Troll Tribes, three varieties (Ice, Jungle, Island) based on item gathering and survival. * Dragonball Z Tribute *: A very popular map based on the characters and events of the anime Dragonball Z. It features high character levels, transformations and map import art. * Night of the Dead/Dawn of the Dead/SWAT vs. Resident Evil/SWAT: Aftermath (SWAT) *: Four maps based off of the movies Dawn of the Dead, Night of the Dead and Resident Evil. These maps have a group of players fend off a zombie invasion while either fleeing from the city (NotD/DotD) or saving it (SWAT). * Legend of Zelda - Epic RPG *: Map based off the popular Ocarina of Time video game for the Nintendo 64. Other Epic RPG variations exist, such as Final Fantasy VII Epic RPG. * Elven War: Armageddon *: A very popular offense map. This map can be downloaded from http://wc3sear.ch or worldofwar.net. The map is popular with its variety of items, combination items, Heroes and nice spells. It has a perfect gameplay, beautiful terrain. * Farmer vs Hunter *: A farmer makes farms and, eventually powerful towers, while the hunter must find farmers an kill them before their bases become too big. Other adaptations The strategy board game Warcraft: The Board Game was released in 2003 by Fantasy Flight Games, and is based on Warcraft III. It uses a modular game board, which allows many different scenarios to be played with the same set of components. Quotations One of the features of Warcraft III are the unit quotes. If a single unit was clicked several times in a row, the unit's voice samples would change. The unit would start getting angry at the player, or start saying silly things in reference to movies, games, or other things. For example, a peasant might say, "Help! Help! I'm being repressed!" — a quote from the movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail. See also * Warcraft * Warcraft II * World of Warcraft * Warcraft Universe * Warcraft III Collectors Edition External links * [http://www.blizzard.com/war3/ The Official Warcraft III Homepage] * Blizzard's Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne Expansion Pack Page * [http://www.battle.net/war3 The Official Warcraft III Strategy Guide] * [http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/warcraft.html The Official Warcraft: The Board Game Homepage] * 30rated, Warcraft III fan site with help fixing hosting problems and maps * [http://war3.worldofwar.net/ A Warcraft III fan site] * [http://www.wc3campaigns.com/ WC3Campaigns, campaigns for Warcraft III] * Replayers.com, A site to download and watch games * Warcraft 3 World * Old WarcraftIII.net (many maps) * WarcraftStrategy.com - Warcraft 3 Strategy, Tips, Hints, Reports, News and Resource Site * Mod Database contains links to unofficial Warcraft 3 mods sources Taken mostly from the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warcraft_III Wikiepdia article Category:Sources Category:Games